BACK

 

How did the exposition go? Fine! How did the talk go? Fully taken!

 

somebody had to take the photo

 

Now back with a changed mind. The last weeks before the expo was filled with legal arguments and research into possibilities. Several meetings followed while i was still doing the last touches to the powerpoint pictures and the photo’s pfffffff. It all fitted just in the suitcase but my mind was wandering and wondering.

 

LEAVING A LEAF IN PORTUGAL

 

The whole thing made me change my mind once again. It is a huge project but we need to think into this direction, giving to nature, creating new landscapes, making art in nature with nature.  Hansjorg Wyss is a multi billionaire (miljarden), you know that figure with 9 zeros 1,000,000,000 he is giving 1 of them billions to biodiversity. LINK

That is large scale work however this doesn’t mean the small scale has less value for them birds and bees, remember drop in the oceaan, without them drops no oceaan. We can do so much.

 

AUW

 

Back there along the riverside seeing the natural beauty which gets pushed aside so easy gave me courage. Yep, more trees were planted for the entire month of the exhibition. The plot is small compared with Wyss efforts but can we stand by to see them plots one after an other disappear under diggers and concrete. Instead we can leave what is there and add to it. Jardim LeLien can be an example how you can do it and it sure is a great retreat to experience nature full on.

 

story wheel at Jardim LeLien

 

First idea was to sell the plot and use the money now it stays and become perhaps the first asset of the Land Art Bos Association (LABA). What i can give i give.
So i started weeding  and put the weeds by the river site to create more land as the river takes and give, actually some boats speed along so fast creating such a wash to literary wash away precious soil. Some of the plants once planted did not make it still remained giving shelter for others. New plants went in every week some more trees like the wonderful Strawberry tree LINK. The link is well worth reading.

 

young Strawberry tree in the morning dew

 

No need, for lots of money when you find the acorns lay them between wet tissue paper outside and wait for germination to plant.

So the idea grows from past experience to new ways as the growing in Portugal is different than in Wales. (never too old to learn). 

The first members are here as Rio Guadiana give her home to many boaters from all over the world, some of them have been travelling over the seven seas for many years and come from many backgrounds. A prefect start. 

 

acorn from the Cork Oak with the first small growth

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POSTERS

international
posters
are up and hanging
hereby the big ones
so you can print and hang them as
*_*

 

 

 

 

 

 

Radr0

amazing

radro

that seeking feeling of wanting
wanting to do
to do something
something which matters

not
just a drop
in the biG ocean
something which matters

matter that counts
counts towards a difference
different approach
something which matters

 silence contribution
towards a statement
we care

ALMOST

ALMOST
The last weeks have been very busy to get it all done for the expo.

 

Silent Reflection

 

Art  and symbols go hand in hand. Therefor i went to my old stomping ground to get some photos of where perhaps it once all began. Symbolic making connections between one place and the other. Using Earth Pigments from different places, Gom Terpentine from the Pines in Portugal.

 

Willow Trail

 

The willow trail goes to the river where, as a teenager, many days were spend to hide from the outer world. A cycle ride, no car in my household, not now, not than, choosing the right time for some other reflections.

 

double tripple

 

In between being in contact with Alcoutim where the expo will be, talking about titles, artists statement, text for leaflets and of course images. Well some images did go fine yet others came out almost right, almost but still not. The double exposure way of showing photos without photoshop is a challenge, almost there.

 

Like a Painting

 

Than while watching the sunrise making time for painting as some photos come out like paintings. The need for more skills was demanding a bit of time for reading and experimenting to get the effect i was looking for. Yes, it is so much easier to just buy some ready made frames to put the photos in but not so creative, much more expensieve and too heavy for on the plane.

 

What’s wrong

 

Almost got the effect and than problems creep around the corner and it is almost completely wrong. New experiments after yet an other trip to Rotterdam to get once again more material. To make paint from Earth Pigments is an other story. You need some chemistry to make it all the way you want and by times it is almost finished.
Other ingredients are: Linseed oil, home made glue with potato starch, paper, recycled carton (ugly grey stuf), double sided sticky tape and terpentine.
The tools are fascinating, glass plate, pipets, brushes, pallet knife, spoons, forks oh and where is the scissor.

 

Much Better

 

All the photos are printed and ready, half of the painting is done all the cutting to the size of the portfolio is done. If that was all it would be fine but in the meantime i bent my head around all the legal sorting for the realisation of the Land Art Bos, yep changed the name. Land Art Forest L.A.F. means in dutch cowardly and Land Art Bos L.A.B. stands for laboratory which is not so bad and it shows the multi languages, multi attitudes, multicultural of the project. We now have a ‘vereniging’ an association were soon people can become a member of, more of this at a later time. To top it off the bookings and life moves on like the restoration of an old wooden boat.

OK i am tired but Almost there.

Creating Photos

Creating photos

Many say  ‘don’t take a photo create a photo’

The camera limitations made me to have to create photos. The use of pictureTalk, what do you want to say with your pictures, creates photos.

under the try-pot

The photography becomes a daily venture, a daily learning of picturesque. Your point of view altering every time you look.

The path took me back to the past, my early childhood years there were i learned to ice-skate. The roads were now so small compare to my childhood vision but the trees had grown. Only when you stop, only when you slow down you start to see what once was.

people always smile when my pictures are created as i lay close to the water surface and only the small camera can be there with me. The professional cameras will drop and drown, giving a very frustrated image. How can you place a trypote in the water close enough to the water surface. Than how can you take the moving leaf while standing solid on 3 legs.

So the photos are created with a simple camera which i can hold very still in my hand just above the water surface. The camera can be moved easy flowing with the floating leaf, perfect you would say.

Yep , but, the quality of the photo is such that it can’t be printed  more than A3 and even than you see the pixels appear. SO, no photo program like photoshop or others will be able to overcome this by creating pixels, it can’t add on. The idea came to create even further a photo by using software, research shows some spectacle results of double exposure making one photo with several photos. OK That goes well over my head. Photoshop is a very complicated program which takes a long time learning but i have an old desktop publishing program with which i have created many leaflets, business cards, books and posters.

You can create layer over layer not giving the same effect as double exposure, still giving the possibility to create one photo  with several photos and even better giving the possibility of collage.

The way to print on A3 without loosing any pixels. After lots of experimenting, the final cut has come. Using several photos i took while laying and standing there were i learned iceskating, perhaps the place where my love for nature started. 

See you

eArth pigmEnt

After reconsidering, after and other reconsider, after yet an other reconsider it feels my feet have landed back on earth.

multi media

The first thing came to create photos in a multi media setting only not sure which multi would be really multi.
It came from the thinking of not just making a photo by clicking the button on the right time at the right place. The one seconde image leaving a sense of creativity long gone.
The one moment light flash of a camera.
All sort of option came along but in the end it stopped by earth pigments.

Like other artists, acteurs, musicians, poets i have studied the new approach, new subject for the exhibition.
It is easy to choose from created work but much more fun to create something new and it is more mind blowing.
An acteur said in an interview that for every role, she made a detailed study of the character she had to perform. It is crucial in art to do this, to prepare yourself, no matter how often you have done it, this time will be different once again.

There are many, what i call, fast art out there. Made fast, displayed fast and moved fast.
Perhaps our fast society demands this from us.
Better to have a balance, between fast and slow, old and new.

So i have studied the history of colour, read books, blogs, research and did perform some  experiments.
Earth pigments were used in humans first artistic expressions, they are found in cave paintings all over the world. Earth pigments come from the earth as the name says making  a connection to the land in Land Art.
As it is the very old way of making pictures combining it with the very new way of making pictures (digital photography).

The first known pigments use date to the early Palaeolithic period ( 350,000 bc). Many people say Land Art goes back in time and compare Spiral Jetty with Stone Henge.
It make sense to use the earth pigments in an exhibition for Land Art Forest.
To finally create something which will be seen long into the future. The old with the new in one picture.

The earth pigments which will be used are not light fast and will fade but that makes them so special.
In my search i found this windmill in Holland which still have lots of the old pigments including the earth pigments.
Finally all the ingredients are together to do some more experiments and practise these old technics.
While in the mean time still going out to collect them moments in a camera.

it all goes down

The reason for my absent here from the blog for several weeks is not the study of earth pigments but the fact that WordPress is eating gigabytes.
Every time i load the site i also load the blogs i write and all the photos blablabla.
After some research i found out that it was no hagger or spams or some other strange behaviour it is just how WordPress works.
So i deleted the old blogs from this site except some important blogs and deleted also Dabe-Art blog and Clegyr Boia blog.

Things should go better now.

trickle dikkel

Here we are with how it went and not went while dribbling with earth pigments over paper.

dripping mountain

Most paper could not cope and just became dirty, yet the simple drawing paper went how it should have went.
Leaving a river, better said veins. Like the sea leaving the beach.

more to come

Water uncontrollable dripping all over the place, buckling the paper in hills, mountains and valleys.

Background courage.

venture

The veins on paper reflect the veins in the leaf. A sheet off paper with the leaving leaf.

RIVER TREE
huge stem
breaking
water pomp
into
smaller and smaller
division
flapping wing in desperation

a float

 

While doing and doing a bit more you get other surprises.
love how the camera interpretative the subject to its own demand.

 

what we don’t see

Vague expression.
Vage gewaarwording onder
een kantklos

A decision has been made to create a photo-poetry-book with the title Mestanda.

The book will be for sale at the exhibition and have a selection of the photoworks on display plus some extras.
You will be able to buy it no matter where you are on this planet.

MESTANDA